Who here has never called into school sick when they were not actually sick? I would guess very few and far between. At Aragon the attendance policy is rather strict. If the activity or reason for being absent is not on the small list of excused absences than it is an unexcused absence. Unexcused absences in their nature just cause problems.
I have heard of many reasons that students call in "sick". The need to finish a school project/paper that is due that day, the need to relax from being overworked, vacations, etc. Are these reasons rather great? Not really. The first one I personally find rather despicable. The second and third one are understandable from the student's point of view but at the same time understandably not acceptable from the school's perspective. I cannot say I have never had to call in "sick" to go on vacation or the likes.
However, along with the questionable reasons people get out of school for, their are many circumstances where students really should be excused out of class but are not by the school.
One fellow student comes to mind immediately for me. I will not mention his/her name because I have not asked him/her about writing on his/her situation on the blog.This person goes to aragon and is part of the search and rescue team in San Mateo county. That means he/she is called when they need to have a massive search to rescue people in serious danger. However, search and rescue is not on the list of excused absences. Therefore even though the police call him/her to give him a rescue mission the school does that excuse him/her. He/she has to call in sick . . . Apparently saving lives is not a good enough excuse to miss class.
Another such situation is visiting colleges. I know personally that I do not want to go visit a college while it is on vacation. I want to see the school while students are there and the college is buzzing with activity. However, normally when they have class, so do we. The counselors themselves incourage visiting the colleges while they are in session. However, college visits are not on the list of excused absenses. Therefore one of the counselors him/her self said to me "just call in sick".
To play the devil's advikit, there is a reason for the strict attendance policy. I believe it is state law or something to that affect that only certain excuses be excused absenses. It is part of the state's/district's/whoever sets the rules 's way of trying to keep attendence up so that we can all get a better education.
However, some of the things such as college visits do make our education better but require us to miss a little school. I believe that the school should have a more loose system for aquiring excused absences. Although the system of simply calling in sick works, it is a crummy system and needs to be chaned.
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I agree, Mark. Whenever I hear of students missing class in order to finish projects or extend their time to turn in essays or what not, it does not make me wonder why our school has such a strict attendance policy. However, much like you said, I also feel that sometimes students do have legitimate reasons to not be at school; many of those reasons are not recognized by the school as legitimate reasons to leave. Especially for seniors, visiting colleges is a particular necessity. However, if it comes down to finding a good college that I want to spend the rest of my life saying I graduated from or getting an unexcused absence on my record, I may just take the dire consequence.
So, I did a little research into this. Under the California Education Code section 48205:
"a pupil shall be excused from school when the absence is
1) Due to his or her illness
2) Due to quarantine under the direction of a county or city health officer
3)For the purposes of having medical, dental, optometrical, or chiropractic services rendered.
4) For the purpose of attending the funeral services of a member of his or her immediate family, so long as the absence is not more than one day if the service is conducted in California and not more than three days if the service is conducted outside California
5) For the purpose of jury duty in the manner provided for by the law
6) Due to the illness or medical appointment during school hours of a child who the pupil is the custodial parent.
7) For justifiable personal reasons, including, but not limited to, an appearance in court, attendance at a funeral service, observance of a holiday or ceremony of his or religion, attendance at religious retreats, or attendance at an employment conference, when the pupil's absence has been requested in writing by the parent or guardian and approved by the principal or a designated representative pursuant to uniform standards established by the governing board.
My, that was a lot of typing. Anyway, I would like to draw attention to bullet point 7 as the rest of them make sense. Justifiable reasons . I'm sure that Search and Rescue is a justifiable reason, I'm sure college visits are a justifiable reason, yet why doesn't the administration mark it as an excused absence? I don't think it's state law or even district rules that make us have to call in sick or have a parent cover for us for a legitimate absence. I think it's the administration here at Aragon that make life a bit harder for us. I hope they know that they have the Justifiable reasons line they can use so they don't get in trouble with the state or whatever reason they use so as to make us call in sick.
Someone please correct me if I am mistaken, but from what I heard, the number of students attending school every day plays a part in determining the funds that go towards the school. I do not know the history of the attendance policy of Aragon nor am I willing to try to find records of past attendance policies, but I believe that based on the current circumstances our school is in monetarily, Aragon had to come up with a way to try to get more of us students to come to school on a daily basis.
If attendance has to do something with money, I believe that the school is not trying to make life harder for us, but rather easier for us by getting more money that they can use to buy basic school supplies such as textbooks (seeing as some classes do not have enough textbooks for all of the students in the class).
Aside from that, I have to disagree with all of you that visiting colleges is an excusable absence. I understand that visiting colleges while in session is vital to figuring out what college suits a student best, but there are times (though brief) when our school is not in session, but many colleges are. I believe students should simply just take advantage of those brief periods to take a look at colleges.
-Yuzo Yanagitsuru
In response to Yuzo, I found this article with a little help from Google.
http://www.arounddublinblog.com/2009/02/improved-student-attendance-more/
It supports the claim that schools get money from attendance. So, the admins have to look out for the money they get. That makes sense, but still, it's no reason to make us call in sick for things such as Search and Rescue, college visits, or even attending a competition.
Well, let me ask you this, Yuzo, would you rather visit colleges when there are TONS of other high school students there and if you visit a classroom, where half the class is stocked with high school students visiting or when it's relatively empty and mainly college students? How about when you're visiting colleges outside of California, and you can only make it to two colleges during the week or so of high school vacation and college sessions? What happens to all the other colleges? I, for one, plan on applying to roughly 10-12 schools, UC counts as one. What happens if I want to visit East Coast colleges? It turns out I can only visit 2 in the short overlap, what happens to the other 10?
I guess there are some truly excusable reasons for staying home and not attending school but at the same time I feel that there are some, if not many, who abuse the policy such as staying home when they're not really "sick" (ex. just a light cough or a minor cold)
I sometimes feel that it just all comes down to a power and authority struggle. The district just loves to assert itself over its students. Then it goes back to the of how a government only if its people cooperate. The San Mateo Union High School District is in some ways a small government that runs multiple branches of schools throughout San Mateo County. The fact that people are calling in sick all the time even though they're not actually "sick" goes to show how much cooperation the district gets from its students. There were many strikes throughout the last 3 years also where even teachers have taken part in protesting how the district handles problems.
And as for the student who is part of the San Mateo County SAR team, I hope the district opens up its eyes and realizes there are bigger things than just medical leaves and what THEY think is "a reasonable excuse". I thought saving lives was above pulling in funds for the district? But I guess not either.
I really do commend the district for trying to increase their budget from single-digit cents to double digits, but sadly, we'll all be graduating before we get to witness this event in history.
Franklin, I agree with you too. They only do these things just because they want the funding, not really because its a law. Drawing on the same concept as the interstate highway speed limits (it's not really a law. The state just wants federal funding to repair highways because they can't source the money themselves).
I'd like to meet this person who takes part in SMC's SAR team, I wouldn't mind joining too. I'd like to know how much that person has to put up with for saving lives.
I do agree that things should be on excused absences.Funerals are not on aragons excused absences. I was not able to attend my god fatheres funeral because it was not an excused absence and my parents are not big on lies. Thankfully the day after when school was out there was also a wake held in his honor and i was able to attend. But i bealive things should change with attendance and what is acceptable and what is not.
Well, I agree with the fact that many people tend to take advantage of the attendance system especially when they have a project they need to finish and I too find this extremely annoying and unfair. Also, regarding the student who is called away on the search and rescue missions, I too find it hard to believe that searching for a missing person in the wilderness is not considered an "excused" absence. Also, about college visits. If you were to truly understand what it will be like to go to a certain college, you have to have the opportunity to see the students in their classes, during breaks and get a feel for what classes are like. Going to visit some colleges on long weekends is like visiting a ghost town because many of the students have gone home, or are simply not on campus. However, I do not think you should be excused to visit colleges simply because while it is very beneficial to see a regular day of college life, it is not imperative. If you really wanted to see a college on a regular school day then I suggest you either call in sick.
And about the funeral absences, I do believe they are on the list for excused absences. If not I think "Family Emergency" should work as well.
-Victor Hung
P.S. I think "devil's advikit" is supposed to be spelled Devil's Advocate...but I may be wrong.
I agree with you Mark that college visits should be excused absences. We are encouraged to look at schools and I believe that all of our teachers understand the importance of this as well and will (hopefully) allow us to make up any of the work we missed while we were away.
I will be "calling in sick" this thursday and "friday", unless my mom decides to be honest with the office about my college visit. And yes, Mr. Silton knows about this already so don't think I'm dumb for posting the real reason why I'll be absent later this week.
I also agree that college visits should be excused absences as it makes more sense to see a school while it is in session than on a break/vacation.
Catherine and I both will be having to "call in sick" because we are looking at schools on the east coast. I'm sure many of the seniors will be using that "excuse" this year. It should just be excused since we are going to look at a school for our future.
I agree with you Mark. It is necessary to skip school during our senior year so we can go visit colleges. Visiting the schools during the break does not really give us a good perception of how the school runs.In addition, some people have reasonable reasons to not attend school. For example, a family emergency may suddenly occur and the student may need to skip school.
Mark, I totally agree with you. I wasn't even excused for religious purposes, but my teachers allowed me to make up work anyways. I don't believe it's state law, but I think its district policy. One thing I feel is absurd , though, is a family emergency or, as you stated, a search and rescue mission is not excused. Also, my family used to take lots of vacations and because I started going to Aragon. For a little while I didn't have a choice because my parents said, "no, you're coming with us," and would call me in "sick." But now my parents have started to get used to the policies.
Some of the time, there is an exception, someone may actually be sick, but most of the time, it's an unfortunate loss of integrity and honesty in people's character, if it's not evident enough.
-Andrew Oxendine 3°
I agree with many of you-the attendance policies at Aragon are ridiculous at times. No one should have to call in sick because they are going to visit colleges or to a funeral of someone who is not immediate family. At the same time, the policy is kind of necessary. I would consider myself a fairly responsible student, but I can guarantee you that, if my attendance was not monitored as closely as it is and couldn't affect me as much as it can, I would take full advantage of any loophole I could find. High school is required schooling by law, and students have to attend. At the same time, I am completely looking forward to college (optional education), where they may not actually care if I value an early thursday morning class or an extra 2 hours of sleep more.
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